Another quick writing challenge I did and the topic was being stuck somewhere with someone annoying.

The Island

I woke with a start.  My body was both burning and wet.  What was going on?  Where was I?  Slowly I began to recognise the environment I now found myself in.  Wet damp sand that clumped on my skin.  The ebb and flow of a tidal edge washing up over the lower half of my body and the heat from a blazing tropical sun beating down on my back and my head, burning and itching.

            

I groaned and wanted to be back in the unconscious state I had just come out of.  The reality was too much to bear.  I pushed myself up with my arms and shifted into a sitting position to see where I was.  A golden sandy beach stretched out either side of me.  Palms and scrubby trees and bushes lined the top of the beach behind me, hiding the land that lay beyond.  All I could see was sea, sky and sand...

            

And the bulk of another human laid out at the water’s edge a few metres from me.

            

I got up and unsteadily made my way over.  The bulk transformed into the huge mass that was my sister.  She opened her eyes and stared at me and immediately began to complain, just like she always did.
            

‘Oh my God, what’s happened to me?’ she wailed and I helped her to sit up because she didn’t have the energy to do it herself.

            

‘Looks like we survived the wreck.  God knows if anyone else did, there’s only you and I on this beach,’ I told her.

            

‘What are we going to do?’ she screeched.

            

I inwardly laughed.  The collective ‘we’ being ‘me’ and what she expected me to do to get us out of this mess.  I sighed.

            

‘First thing’s first, we should build some shelter and find water.’

            

‘But how are we going to do that?’

            

The day progressed just as I had predicted.  My sister sat and complained all day, whilst I built a makeshift shelter and braved the unknown beyond the beach with all its dangerous-looking insects to find fresh water.  I had fortunately found debris from the shipwreck and gathered it up to the spot we had picked as our new temporary home.  I took a pitcher and came back from the scrubby jungle with fresh water that I had found at a waterfall about a half a mile inland.  And you know what, the greedy bitch drank the lot.

            

‘Well you can go back and get some more, can’t you?’ she said, flopping back against the soft sand under a palm tree.

            

‘Fine, but why don’t you weave together some of those rushes and we can use it as a roof for our shelter’s frame.

            

‘I can’t weave,’ she pouted.

            

This went on for ten days.  Me collecting water.  Me getting a fire going.  Me spending hours and hours to catch and cook one small fish, which she ate, saying it tasted a little too fishy for her liking.

            

‘Well, didn’t you catch two fish?’ she asked me in disbelief as if I was the stupid one.

            

When a tropical storm blew in and wrecked our shelter, guess who rebuilt it.  Guess who complained it wasn’t as good as the first one I had built.

Then one day a ship appeared on the horizon.

            

‘Well, do something!’ my sister screeched, waving her arms in the air from her seated position under the shelter.  

So, I built up the permanent fire I kept going, because to keep relighting it was a pain in the backside... I built it up until it was roaring then I ran up and down the beach, waving my hands in the air.

            

The ship slunk away beyond the horizon and I stared out to sea with my hands on my head, feeling hopeless.

            

‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ my sister griped. ‘You should have built a bigger fire.’

            

‘You could have helped,’ I shot back at her.

            

‘Me?’  She looked at me as if I had lost my marbles.  And I was losing them because dark thoughts not only invaded my dreams now, but they played out scenarios in my head during the day too.

            

‘We need more food,’ I said the next day. ‘The fish are so hard to catch.’

            

‘Well, can’t you go and hunt for something, you now, in the jungle, wild pig or something,’ my sister suggested.

            

I looked at her.  I didn’t think I could do it, go and hunt for a mammal and kill it.  What if I didn’t kill it outright?  It would be suffering.  I couldn’t do that to a living mammal. And then I’d have to drag it back to camp, and skin it and cook it.  No, I couldn’t do that.

            

‘Well?’ my sister pushed.  ‘Go on then, go and find something to kill.’

            

My sister flopped backwards on the sand.  Her eyes stared up at the sky through the woven rushes I had made a roof out of.  I dropped the tree branch on the floor and stared down at her.

            

‘Well,’ I said, ‘at least she didn’t suffer’.

Found Music

She couldn’t play an instrument and she couldn’t read music.  She had no desire to learn to play an instrument either, but she did love music and she found it everywhere.

Just that morning she saw it on the telegraph wires behind her house.  Little sparrows perched here and there along the four lines of wires, like musical notes.  So that was what birdsong looked like, she thought with a smile.

She wondered about the tunes in water as well.  On her last holiday she sat at the edge of the pool and gazed down into the water, transfixed by the patterns the movement of water made on the bottom of the pool when the sun shone down on it.  They looked like sound waves.  Water music.  Oh, and the stream in the woods made music all day, every day, trickling in delicate tinkles over the rocks, bubbling and burbling long and when that was partnered with the birdsong, it was the most amazing music in the world.

She sighed.  There was work to do.  She didn’t have time to daydream, so she went about her daily chores, but she found more music there too.  She threw her freshly washed clothes into the tumble dryer and turned it on.  She sat at her desk and attempted to work, but a beat began to work its way into her head.  Rhythmic and luring, a gentle thump, thump, thump came through as the dryer rumbled around and around.  She began to hum a little tune to go with the beat.  If she had known how to write music, she may have had a hit on her hands.  The boiler lit and wooshed on and its funny little clicks joined in.  Next came the reversing beeps outside as a truck reversed up the hill then the neighbour’s cat who had clearly come face-to-face with its arch enemy, the ginger tom from four doors down.  As the orchestra of noises fell into a harmonious sound the two cats wailing outside added an extra edge to the tune.  As the music reached its crescendo, she stopped and closed her eyes. She held her breath then laughed as the tune died back to just the boiler clicks and the rhythmic tumble dryer beat.

She finished her day down at the beach, where her favourite kind of music waited for her.  Some days it was wild and dramatic, leaving her breathless and energised.  She really did love musical days like that.  They were full of orchestras and crazy conductors throwing everything they had into it.  Drums would pound, strings would be fraught with madness and trumpets would screech and flail about.  But today it was calm and meditative, like a perfect Gymnopedie.  A gentle ebb and flow of tide water rolling softly onto the sands. The perfect drifting end to her day.
            
Copyright©CazEddy 2020

A light-hearted piece, written for a writing challenge on the theme of 'new beginnings'.

Herman’s New Beginning

Herman sat and looked out at the rain.  He shifted slightly to find a more comfortable position then sighed.  He was stuck in a rut and despite the new year and his good intentions to do something about the current rut he was in, Herman just couldn’t summon up any motivation.
            
The caravan he lived in was no longer accommodating his needs and it was long past looking its best.  The thing with caravans was that they depreciated over time through general wear and tear and Herman had put his through a lot.  He had travelled far and wide in his but now it was kaput!  He liked that word…kaput, but he didn’t like what it meant, particularly for him at that moment in time.  It leaked and it looked horrible with green slime growing up on the outside.  In fact, the green was even creeping inside, due to the aforementioned leak problem.
            
He sighed again and stuck his head out to see if the rain was showing any signs of stopping.  A great drop of water plopped down on his head from the tree that bent over his caravan.  He took a sharp intake of breath at the sudden coldness then thought, actually that was quite pleasant, once the shock of it had worn off.   He also couldn’t see much from his current location.  You see, Herman had had a slight accident in his caravan on an uneven part of the track, and the whole thing went tumbling down a slope into the damn rut he was now stuck in and had been for days.  No one passed by so his calls for help went unheeded.
           
The rut was now beginning to fill up with water…sloppy, brown, muddy water.  Every time Herman tried to crawl up and out of the space, he just slid back down again.  So frustrating.  He was wet, muddy and cold and very unhappy.
            
Suddenly a loud obnoxious noise came from down the track above him.  Herman’s spirit lifted.  Could it be help?  As the object making the noise, that sounded like a huge metallic grating monster, grew closer the noise became unbearable.
           
‘Oh!’ Herman cried out, shaking his head in distress then something wonderful happened.
            
As the great thundering object passed by his position, a wave of water came washing over Herman and soon he found himself propelled out of the muddy rut and quickly tumbling then tumbling some more, all the way down the slope.
            
‘Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,’ said Herman as he went head over heels, rolling down the slope.
            
On the way down a great weight lifted from his shoulders and he was suddenly caravanless.  It was gone, just like that, obliterated into pieces until there was only Herman left.
            
He landed at the bottom of the slope and for a moment he didn’t move.  He caught his breath then looked around.  The sun in the sky began to break through the clouds and the rain pattered to a stop.  He looked up the slope and saw the scattered debris of his caravan strewn down the whole side of the slope.
            
Now what?
           
Herman turned and saw the sea!  He caught his breath again, this time in wonder.  So that was where the sea had gone, he thought.  How he missed it so.
            
He gathered himself together and hurried across the duney land, loving the feel of the soft powdery sand beneath him.  And then there it was!  Herman gasped!  It was beautiful in pastel pink, an entirely brand new caravan, and it was empty!  He looked to his left and to his right…then ran.
            
Before anyone else could claim the abandoned real estate, Herman gathered it to himself and squeeeeeezed quickly inside.
           
‘Ooh,’ he said once he it was positioned just right.  It was quite roomy inside.  It was perfect.
           
Herman trundled off across the sand and finally into the sea.

©Caz Eddy 2020 

The Woman in The Fog

For years she searched for peace, and for years it eluded her.  The woman wasn’t even sure if she would know what peace was, when or if she ever found it.  She just knew it was something that she wanted.  She tried to imagine it in different forms.  Was peace an afternoon sitting in a chair reading a book?  Was peace a full night of sleep with no dreams?  Was peace possible while surrounded by others?
           
All her life the woman spent her time in the company of others.  Firstly, her siblings; a shared bedroom where she found a vague sense of peace only in the middle of the night when her sister was asleep.  But it wasn’t a true peace.  The years passed by full of sibling rivalry, and the constant battle of space invasion.  Being the oldest child of the family filled her hours with babysitting duties so her parents could enjoy peace.  Next came best friends and boyfriends, all requiring her time and her involvement…mentally, physically.   Then came love and as amazing as that was, it was not peace, more like a cyclone.  Marriage came with a wedding full of people and noise, thankfully just for a day.  Then there was a dog, and babies arrived, two of them and peace diminished to being just a word and nothing more.  She was needed to ensure the peace for others.
           
One day the woman woke up and found that everyone had gone.  The babies were out there in the world looking after their own babies now.  The love she married was still in her life, but he didn’t need her as much these days and he wasn’t there in the house right now.  He had discovered his own peace and kept it without her because his peace was not the same as the peace she yearned for.  The cyclone of love had calmed to a light comfortable breeze and suddenly she felt the word ‘peace’ growing bigger in her mind.        
           
She got up and looked out of the window.  The house she lived in stood across the road from a long pebble beach.  The day outside was thick white with no sky, no sea, and even the houses opposite had vanished.  She caught her breath and felt drawn to be in the outside.
           
The woman wrapped up and put the latest dog on a lead and stepped out of the house.  The woman and the dog made their way across the road.  Their breath added to the white that hung in the air.  The world parted before them as they went but only just enough to see ahead for a very short distance.  She didn’t know what was in front of her, and when she checked behind, she no longer could see what had been.  Every step she took felt like an adventure.  The safety of the house was out of sight and only instinct could take her back to it now.  She let the dog off the lead and he quickly found interesting smells, but he stuck close to her side, suspicious of the thick white day.  The pebbles beneath her feet were hard and rounded by their millennia on the earth and in the sea.  They clacked and shifted beneath her as she made her way over them.  The slope down to the tideline was short but steep and her feet sunk deep as the pebbles cascaded along with her until she came to the place where the landed levelled and the sea spilled into the scene.  She stood for a moment staring out over the place where she knew the sea existed as a big entity full of power and emotion but today it was small and like glass.  If she threw a stone, would it shatter the sea?  Somewhere out in the thick white world a muffled foghorn moaned with mournful unease, as if to say, ‘don’t forget me’.
           
For the woman, the word peace began to anchor.  No one knew she was here; no one could see her, and she could see no one else.  She could scream loudly if she wanted.  Someone might hear her, but they’d never know it was her.
           
The dog barked!  The usually sharp sound came out like a puff of cotton wool.  She turned her head and glimpsed a shadow shifting in and out of view.  The dog’s tail wagged and in an instant, he took off, bounding away until the white swallowed him whole along with the shadow she had seen.  She called his name, but he didn’t return.  The peace she had almost grasped began to ribbon out of reach as responsibility for the dog overtook her own need.  She hurried forward after the wayward animal.  She could see him and the shadow ahead, weaving in and out of the thick day that felt like a steamed up mirror that refused to stay clear.  She thought she heard a voice calling, but the sound wasn’t very strong and seemed more like a sound stuck somewhere in the past.  Every time the dog and the shadow became almost substantial, she would call the dog’s name again, and always they dematerialised.  It was like trying to catch up with the end of a rainbow.
           
She stopped.  Her quick movements had agitated the thick white and it now split into tendrils, snaking towards her, offering its peaceful embrace once again and this time she succumbed.  The dog would be fine because the shadow had been familiar.

©Caz Eddy 2020

Been busy over the summer, re-formatting my book 'The Rattler Field' so I could make it available in paperback... get it on Amazon... link on the side.  It's a great read if you like something a bit different.

On the art side, I've been working hard at trying to perfect my acrylic pours.

Sold this little trio recently.  Each one is 20cm x 20cm.  

Art vs Writing

I pushed aside my interest in art when I decided to take the plunge and go to university to study writing.  I just didn't have the time to devote to both writing and art, always feeling like I wanted to be messing about with paint when I was writing and vice versa.  Pushing the art out of my mind gave me the time I needed to write, which is where my passion lies most of the time.

I had been writing like crazy until about April when I hit a plot hole and it all came to a shuddering halt.  Since then I have been procrastinating and mulling ideas around in my head to get myself out of this block and meanwhile took the opportunity to get back into a bit of art.  Armed with a birthday voucher from my brother for a certain online store, I invested in a set of acrylic paints and I have been having fun ever since.

I love doing Acrylic Pours because of the element of surprise with the final result.  There is only a certain amount of control the artist has over these, and that is what I like...oh, and they don't take long to do once you have all your paints mixed up.

Above is a trio of paintings I did as a commission for a friend for their hallway.  Below is one I did for another friend's birthday.  There are more...some not so successful, some terrible, and a couple I am pretty pleased with, but I am still learning the technique.  My next goal is to do a much larger canvas; a real statement piece I wouldn't be ashamed to hang on the wall here at home.

It's a beautiful day to be down at the beach.